Vladyslav Manger, head of Kherson Oblast Council, who is a suspect in the murder of local municipal official Kateryna Gandziuk, returned to work in the oblast council on April 12, his spokesperson said.
Manger was suspended from work on March 6 for a month but then he failed to visit the court hearings to extend his suspension allegedly because of being hospitalized in Kherson with heart disease.
“He has got better,” Manger’s spokesperson Halyna Liashevska told the Kyiv Post. “He will continue his work as usual.”
Manger held a meeting regarding the improvement of the medical services of the oblast, according to his oblast council’s website.
Gandziuk was an outspoken Kherson deputy mayor, who was attacked in late July with a liter of sulfuric acid and died three months later.
In August, the police arrested four war veterans suspected of perpetrating the attack on her, who admitted being paid for the attack.
Gandziuk’s friends pledged to find all those guilty for her murder, including the people who hired the attackers. For months they were the main driving force of the investigation.
In January, Gandziuk’s father named Manger along with Kherson Oblast governor Andriy Gordeev and deputy governor Yevhen Ryshchuk of ordering his daughter’s murder.
In early February, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko changed Manger with organizing Gandziuk’s murder. Lutsenko, however, found no evidence against Gordeev and Ryshchuk who both were the members of President Petro Poroshenko’s party.
On February 15, Manger was arrested by Kyiv court but were released on bail. Now he is wearing an ankle bracelet.
Until February, Manger was head of the Kherson branch of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s party who called his arrest persecution against her political team. Meanwhile, in February Tymoshenko’s party expelled Manger.
Both Poroshenko and Tymoshenko were pressured by activists to stop covering up their loyalists suspected of Gandziuk’s killing.
Poroshenko fired Gordeev on April 12. Ryshchuk filed his resignation on April 8. Poroshenko is yet to approve it.
